


heartbeat

by skochius



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Thor: The Dark World, Secret Relationship, Waiting Rooms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 08:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14996858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skochius/pseuds/skochius
Summary: Loki -- all but immortal and all but indestructible... until he isn't. When Loki suffers a severe, life-threatening injury during a battle, Tony is left in a position he never thought he would be in.





	heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onyxfyrefly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onyxfyrefly/gifts).



> holasss, so this is post avengers, but disregards nearly everything else :) it's a commission for onyxfyrefly, whom i hope enjoys it! thank you!

* * *

 

It's not as though Tony hasn't seen blood before. He's seen it pouring out of his own chest, staining the edges of dirty bandages, covering the asphalt in giant, messy smears that leave the terrible wrenching feeling of someone that was once there and is now... gone. Alive one moment, dead the next.

Tony has seen more than his fair share of blood.

But the red, red gauze mocks him. Red as Iron Man. Red as—as what it is.

There's a bustle around him, nurses shouting, the distant rumble of thunder, and all through that, a steady beep—beep—beep. Tony can't take his eyes off the blood soaked cloth.

A nurse, tiny and dark-skinned, gently leads him out of the room. As she shuts the door, the last thing Tony sees is red, red, red.

* * *

 

The battle had been like any other, but Tony's estimate. He can't even pinpoint the exact moment where the tides turned—one moment, he and the Space Vikings had been readily handling a minor scuffle on the docks with some cultists that wanted to raise an ancient being, blah blah blah. Cthulhu this, Cthulhu that; this happened at least once a month.

So, yeah, everything was fine and dandy.

And then Loki screamed.

At first, Tony didn't even recognize who the sound had come from—it wasn't until he spun in midair and saw the worst thing he had ever laid eyes upon.

Loki, impaled through the stomach by a giant, writhing tentacle—because of course it was tentacles, when wasn't it tentacles?—desperately slashing at the rubbery flesh with a dagger, a snarl on his lips and blood, blood, blood, raining down from his body.

The tentacle protruded from a gash in space-time, murky darkness barely visible through the twisting mass of its body. On the ground next to the magical clusterfuck was a cultist, wheezing out her last, cackling breath.

“He comes!”

Tony shot towards Loki like an arc bolt and engaged his palm reactors in an attempt to sever the tentacle. The heat sliced through smooth and easy, and with an ungodly wail, the tentacle disconnected, dropping Loki on the ground.

“Stark, handle him!” Thor bellowed, as though Tony weren't already on it.

“Anthony, Anthony—” Loki gasped. He reached up to touch the cold, hard metal cheek of the helmet, leaving a smear of blood.

Lightning flashed across the sky, tearing the tendrils holding the portal open, but Tony only cared about the man that lay dying in his arms.

* * *

 

“You should sleep.”

Tony glances up at Thor from his third or fourth cup of coffee. The blend is terrible, tasting as bitter and bland as the waiting room, but it's caffeine. Keeps his hands full, too, which is comforting in a way Tony doesn't know how to describe. Maybe the sensation makes him feel like he's doing more than waiting, waiting, waiting.

“I slept,” Tony says. That's the truth—he dozed for an hour or so, only to wake as though he'd been electrocuted. Was Loki—how was Loki—Loki doesn't even know—

Loki doesn't even know—

See, Tony's not an idiot. He's read all the stories of mortals that fell in love with gods. He knows how they all end.

Thor plops down next to him with a groan punctuated by the wailing outrage of the hospital's chair. “Stark,” he says, laying a warm hand on Tony's shoulder. “My brother will live. Your Midgardian medicine is... primitive, but effective.”

Tony says nothing. There was so much blood.

“I am sure my brother would be honored to know that a comrade in arms was so concerned, but nevertheless--”

“I'm not leaving.” He can't. Tony doesn't want to face a Tower where there's no spark of mischief, no superior smirk, no curious green eyes. For all that he had complained when Loki arrived, Tony had... become fond of him.

'Fond'. Tony huffs quietly at himself. Why even bother lying to himself of all people?

Thor studies Tony's face with a silent, serious expression. But then, like the sun bursting through storm clouds, he smiles. It's a knowing smile, and a sad one, as well. Perhaps he can see the hopeless love written on Tony's soul.

Tony mumbles something and goes back to his coffee, intent on ignoring Thor until he leaves. But Thor stays with his hand still resting on Tony's shoulder and a smile on his face.

They wait for hours, it seems. There's no windows in the room, and only one analog clock. Tony's long since turned all the TVs off. There is only silence, waiting, counting every breath, though Tony's not completely sure he deserves them. That has nothing to do with Loki; that's just Tony. That's how he's been for years now.

Other Avengers come and go, asking quick questions in a whisper as though they might disturb Loki from rooms away, and giving brief, terse reports. Tony listens with one ear, because that's all he needs to gather up the information. Two ears would be overkill.

Cultists dead, Cthulhu thoroughly pissed off, the summoning book safely in Doctor Strange's hands... all that gone without a hitch.

More people coming, going, staying, leaving. The clock ticks on and on. Thor inhales for the six hundredth and forty-ninth time. Tony jiggles his foot like it owes him money and downs coffee after coffee, getting up only to pee and refill.

And then, mercifully, the small nurse steps into the room. She looks, quite frankly, like she's been hit by a truck, but there's a fierce tilt to her lips and triumph written on the sagging line of her tired shoulders. “He's in stable condition and can receive visitors.” But when they both clamor to their feet, she shakes her head. “One. One at a time.”

Tony's about to sit back down when Thor beats him to the punch—the chair begs for mercy again as Thor settles himself into it. “Go,” he says. “Ten minutes is nothing to me. A heartbeat.”

A heartbeat. He manages to give Thor a weak smile, which Thor returns with a touch more warmth than strictly necessary.

Tony, unsurprisingly, is a bit of a manic when it comes to overthinking things. That's what happens when you have the whole universe at your fingers – all you can think about it a) how small you are and b) how everything could blow up in your face.

Tony's... done a lot of that.

But in all the scenarios of all the situations he's laid in bed trembling at 2am over, he never thought of this.

'This' being Loki, laid out on a hospital-standard bed with tubes and lines and a mask over his face, looking young and pale. Which, Tony's come to learn from intimate experience, is how people tend to look when they're about to die.

Tony Stark knew that his relationship with an all-but-immortal demigod would end in death. He just thought it would be his own.

“Hey,” he whispers, so quiet he can barely hear himself over the cacophony in the room. How were people supposed to sleep like this? How were they supposed to recover?

Loki only breathes in response which, given the circumstances, is every bit as welcome as words.

Mindful of all the equipment hooked up to Loki, Tony places his hand on Loki's naked forearm. The thought that Loki was absolutely going to murder the hospital staff for chopping away at his armor pops into Tony's head and, absurdly, strangled laughter flutters out.

“I'll have to buy the hospital a new wing when they're done with you,” Tony tells Loki. “God, but you're going to be a shit.” The warm skin under his palm is the best thing Tony's felt in his life, and he squeezes, laughter breaking into tears. “Please. Please be a shit. Please the worst fucking patient ever. Just... //be.//”

For the rest of his allotted time, Tony simply stands next to the bed, wondering if anyone has ever before seen a god looking so mortal.

When a soft knock comes from the room outside, Tony doesn't argue. He opens the plain, sterile white door and slips by Thor.

Time doesn't exist inside of a waiting room. There's a clock, but no way to tell if the time is night or day. No windows. Eventually the faces of all the staff starts to blend together, until they just become one amalgamation delivering bad news after bad news.

So Tony just buries his face in his hands and does what everyone else does in a waiting room.

* * *

 

“So it's agreed, then?”

Tony snaps awake. “No, absolutely not.” He pauses, takes in the Avenger's and Co.™ standing around him. “What?”

Natasha shakes her head. Judging from how markedly put-together she looks and how badly Tony's joints ache, he's been out for... a while. “We need to send Loki back to Asgard.”

“What?” An icy shock runs through Tony. “Why? More importantly, is he even in any condition to be moved?”

Steve opens his mouth, but Thor steps in. “My brother will need Healing, soon, if he is to fully recover from this attack. The best way is to take him to Asgard.”

Tony squints, first at Steve, who won't meet his eyes, then at Fury, who does, as stony as a statue. He smells politics.

He dislikes politics.

In fact, Tony's willing to bet his suit that Fury couldn't care less about how quickly Loki recovers—more like he doesn't want Loki dying on his watch. Because Tony's been around the Asgardian boneheads long enough to know that a death from battle is all well and good, but were Loki to die because he wasn't given proper medical care...

Well. That's a different story, isn't it?

And whatever Odin would do—no matter how strained the current relationship between father and son might be—it'd probably be a hell of a lot worse than a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Really, all in all, Tony would normally agree. Ship him off and let someone else deal with that train wreck. But Loki is _his_  train wreck, goddamn it, no matter how private they wanted to keep their, ah, 'Facebook status'.

“Sounds like a good plan, Thunder, so I'll just pack a bag and—“

“You?” Steve interjects. “Why would you need to—”

“The Healers,” Thor says quickly, “will undoubtedly want to hear exactly what happened in order to best treat my brother. Stark bore witness to the injury where I was otherwise distracted with many foes.” And then the son of bitch actually has the nerve to _wink_  at him. “So he will, of course, be coming along. There is no need to pack—we will move quickly and all will be provided.”

And then Tony, for the first time since he was a teenager, finds himself being spun around and all but potato sacked out of the waiting room, and, more importantly, away from any questions.

“Good fib,” Tony shoots as they caught up to the entourage wheeling Loki's bed down the hallway and, presumably, somewhere outside where Bifrost related property damage would be minimal.

Thor gives him a bland look. “Where do you think Loki learned it from, Stark?”

“Oh, save it. But why did you even bother?”

“It is customary to give thanks to your elders, but I shall allow your rudeness given the circumstances.” He continues before Tony could bristle and tell him exactly what he could do with that _allowance_ , “Because I see how you look at my brother. I see how you love him.”

“Busted. Am I that obvious?”

“No, of course not,” Thor says. They keep following the lead of the nurses into a massive elevator and pile all in. “The way you were nearly ready to follow him to Hel was entirely platonic, my friend.”

One of the nurses clear their throats. “We, ah, figured the helicopter landing pad would be best.”

“Not much of a procedure for beaming up a patient, is there?” Tony says with a tight chuckle. “Bill me, I suppose.”

For the rest of the walk, Tony keeps his mouth shut and his eyes on Loki, who at least seems to be able to breath on his own. Tony would prefer him to be storming up and down the Tower halls swearing about some magical nonsense or the other that had eluded him but, well, beggars can't be choosers.

When they reach the landing pad, the sky is churning and black as a nightmare. Little streaks of electricity dance across the storm clouds—how long has this been brewing? Tony sneaks a glance at Thor, who takes the reigns of Loki's fair steed with a placid expression.

The medical staff hang back, wary, as Thor, Loki, and Tony move to the center of the landing pad.

“Is this the part where I make a 'beam me up' joke?” Tony wonders aloud, “I mean, I know I already made one, but—”

Light crashes over his head and pulls him away.

* * *

 

Tony would love to elucidate on the many wonders of Asgard, but he barely had time to orient himself from what felt like being shot through one of those pneumatic tubes at the bank before they were all ushered onto what Tony assumed to be the Asgardian equivalent of an ambulance.

After that there was the urgent medical chatter, the shooing, the rushing, and being stuck back in a damn waiting room. A golden one, at that, because apparently Asgard had been designed by one very determined person with a fetish for the metal.

There is, however, people already occupying the room—a man and a woman, presumably the parents, and Tony should probably crank up the charm, but instead he just manages a weak 'hello' before collapsing.

And Tony would say that it was embarrassing, but he's too exhausted to care, and since it didn't involve pissing himself, he's ready to check it away as 'not a complete failure'.

But more than that, when he comes around, it's to the best sound he's ever heard—

“Dehydration.” Loki's dry, flat voice. “Lack of sleep. Concussion. Really, Stark, one minor impaling hardly warrants that.”

Tony rolls his head on a pillow softer than he's laid on before and nearly sobs to see Loki on a bed a modest few inches from his, frowning mightily and looking every bit as friendly and welcoming as a wet cat.

“Don't” Tony gasps, “Don't even, oh my god. I thought you were going to die.” He scoots his arm across the gap and Loki takes his hand. His grip is warm, his grip is strong, his grip is _alive_.

Loki has the gall to give him an offended look. “Die? At the hand of some writhing beast?”

“Tentacle,” he corrects with a wet sniff. “I just. I thought I was going to be the one dying first and then--”

Loki's grip goes from pleasant and reassuring to painful in a second. “Never,” he says. “You are not dying. No one is dying. What is happening is that you are going to go to sleep, eat a full meal, then kindly explain why you have returned me to my least favorite place in the realms.”

“You were dying!”

Loki's nostrils flare.

“God,” Tony sighs, clinging to Loki's hand. “I just knew you were going to be one of those shitty patients.” He hesitates a moment. There's something he wants to say, something that's be hovering on his tongue for weeks now, months, but he never let the words fly, too afraid they might be too soon.

Until they were almost too late.

“Loki, I—”

“I love you, Anthony Stark,” Loki says, quiet. “I shall not leave you and you shall not leave me. There is no room for discussion or debate; I have made up my mind.”

What an asshole, Tony thinks with a burst of warmth in his chest. “I love you, Loki. Even when you're a dick and nearly die.”

“I did not. Now go to sleep.”

Tony obeys, but he doesn't let go of Loki's hand. Not now—and probably not for a long time yet. No matter what Loki says, no matter how stubborn he is...

Well, best not to think about it. Not now. Now is a time for enjoying and celebrating what he has, especially after nearly losing it.

 

* * *

 


End file.
